Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Fifth grade marks a pivotal year as children prepare for the academic and social challenges of middle school. As fifth grade ends, your child should be fluent in the following skills.

Listening Skills

  • Listens and makes conclusions during subjects like math, science and social studies
  • Understands subjects and topics being taught in class

Talking Skills

  • Plans and makes class presentations
  • Makes presentations interesting through use of expressions, gestures and inflection
  • Participates in discussions in all core subjects
  • Summarizes his or her thoughts with main points during discussions
  • Explains information gathered during group activities

Reading Skills

  • Reads fifth-grade-level books easily
  • Reads and understands many types of writing
  • Reads poetry and can discuss style and meaning
  • Tells how characters and plots develop
  • Uses words to guess meanings of new words (such as figuring out that “frigid” means cold since it’s similar to “refrigerator”)
  • Decides which parts of a written piece are most important to read
  • Learns about different author styles and use of words
  • Uses facts from newspapers, magazines, Internet articles and books to back-up opinions

Writing Skills

  • Writes for many different reasons
  • Uses many different types of sentences
  • Uses words well and correctly in writing
  • Edits and revises drafts on paper and on computer
  • Uses a computer to write short reports, stories, blogs and email messages

If your child has not established the skills listed, you may want to make an appointment for a speech-language evaluation.